This pickled beets and eggs recipe is a yummy recipe to use up leftover eggs. You’ll also find some good ideas for using leftover pickle juice!
Pickled Beets and Eggs Recipe
1 can (13-14 oz.) sliced beets
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup vinegar
1/2 cinnamon stick
6 whole cloves, optional
8 hard boiled eggs, shelled
Drain beets and save juice. Add enough water to juice to make 3/4 cup and pour into a saucepan. Add sugar, vinegar, cinnamon stick and cloves and bring to a boil. Remove from heat. Place eggs in a bowl. Top with beets and pour liquid on top. Cover and chill for 4 hours or overnight.
We just had a reader (Lois) comment that she buys canned beets and puts hard boiled eggs in the juice from those which is a great idea.
Her comment reminded me of a few uses for pickle juice:
- Put fresh veggies, including cauliflower, broccoli, mushrooms, carrots and cucumbers in the leftover pickle juice. Let it set for a few days before eating. Reuse the juice only once. You can also add the veggies to the jar before the pickles are all gone.
- Use pickle juice to spice up pasta salads.
- Mix pickle juice with mayonnaise for an nice salad dressing.
- Pickle your eggs in the pickle juice and then make egg salad for a different flavor.
- Use the the pickle juice to add flavor to potato salad, egg salad or deviled eggs. Instead of using vinegar in deviled eggs, use pickle juice.
From Anita D.
Here’s another way to use leftover hard boiled eggs- Make pickled eggs.
Place shelled eggs in a quart jar. (Save a spaghetti sauce jar to use.)
Mix the following in a small saucepan:
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pickling spice
2 cups vinegar
Simmer 8 minutes. Strain and pour over eggs. Let sit in the refrigerator at least 8 hours (longer is OK). Store in the refrigerator.
Photo By: stuart spivack
I just buy pickled beets in the can—drain off the juice to soak the eggs.
Oops! I forgot, that I also use the pickle juice that is left after eating the pickles to hard boiled eggs. They turn a yellowish green and next to the ones pickled in beet juice they make beautiful deviled eggs.
Lois: you hard boil the eggs in pickle juice, or just pour it over already hard boiled eggs?
Also why can’t you use the juice repeatedly?
I’m not sure unless they think it will only keep for so long. “They” just usually don’t recommend it but I would be tempted to maybe use it at least twice because like you I don’t know what it would hurt.
I find that you can use the pickle juice or the beet juice many times for pickling the eggs, if you boil it for a while. I feel that this kills all the bad bacteria that might be lurking in the juices.
The flavor gets funky, not as vibrant as the first dunk. The pickle juice gets more of an eggie flavor.
Personally I have a enough pickle juice that I wouldn’t need to use the old over again. I you want just make up new.
I was thinking the same thing. Since I keep pickles for ever in my refrigerator I might try it a 2 or 3 times. Does the pickling make the eggs rubbery or is that because they have been cooked too long?
Funny-I was just talking about green eggs (but not ham) because I am in search of a professional development assignment and have 5 interivews in 5 days, which I am doing in person, by phone, in a train station, and evidently all across the nation
(I hope not!)
You are right Grizzly Mom usually the rubberiness comes from cooking too long.
I really like this idea. I love beets and hard cooked eggs, so it’s a great combination. Thanks.
Reusing the juice after a period of time may have developed bacteria because of the eggs. I would say if you use the juice again do so after boiling it again for several minutes.
You are right Karla. I wouldn’t reuse it after doing eggs in it. I was thinking more on the lines of the veggies.
The eggs actually soak up the vinegar (acidity) and if you do it a second time they don’t have any flavor. Unless you boil the juice a bit and add more vinegar but then you could just make a new batch of pickle juice. Just use a recipe you like for making pickles and use that liquid to do your eggs.
Jill, I thought you might like this recipe.
Beet-Raspberry Salad
1 small can crushed pineapple
1 cup beets (diced)
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1 Tablespoon vinegar
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 pkg black raspberry gelatin
1 cup hot water
Drain pineapple and beets, reserving juices. Combine pineapple and beet juice; add enough water to make 1 cup liquid. Add salt, cinnamon, vinegar and sugar. Heat liquid; add gelatin. Add hot water; stir until dissolved. Cool until gelatin begins to set; add pineapple and beets. Chill until firm.
Okay this one is really different. I don’t like beets but Tawra loves,loves them so I bet she would like this recipe.
I hope Tawra would like it. I like beets. It’s the Polish background in me. HA HA.
I’ve found an even more unusual use for pickle juice – I marinate meat in it! It tenderizes and seasons the meat perfectly, and doesn’t leave a pickle taste at all. I got this idea from a German recipe wrapping thin sliced meat around a pickle and baking it. The baked pickle tastes like a cooked vegetable, and the meat is falling apart tender. There’s more to that recipe but I don’t remember it, and I haven’t been able to find the recipe here in the US. By the way, I use gallon ziplock bags to marinate my meat.
Sandi I don’t know if it is the same but one of my favorite treats is to spread a little cream cheese on a slice of ham and then wrap a dill pickle with it. I don’t bake it but it sure is good. My mom made these but she would chill it for a bit and the slice the roll for these really neat appetizers.
The recipe you’re looking for is called
“rouladen”. Google it! There are lots
of recipes for this wonderfully delicious
German recipe!
Boil eggs, peel eggs.
drop into the juice left from a jar of pickled beets.
keep in the fridge.
You can also use the juice from any type of pickle you like the flavour of.
that means the only real work is peeling the boiled eggs.
lots of people just use pickle juice which they pour over cooked beets.
no fuss no muss.
I love anything pickle the sourer the better.
Wish I could find pickled pigs feet in town but that seems to be a no go.
Hi! How long can you keep these pickled eggs?
Pickled eggs need to set in the fridge 1-2 weeks for small eggs and 2-4 weeks for medium to large eggs for the seasonings to really gel well. Then they will store fine for 2-4 months more in the fridge.
Pickled eggs and beets are delicious!!! I usually use the juice from canned or jarred pickled beets…much easier than seasoning and boiled the mixture from scratch. Just boil and peel the eggs and put in the warmed pickled beet juice and let set out for a couple of hours and then refrigerate until the egg whites have turned red. Turn the eggs occasionally so the eggs will be evenly colored. Also my family has always added sliced onions to the beets and eggs for a different taste. Besides just eating as is, try adding the onion rings to a green salad and slicing the eggs over the top of the salad…just beautiful with the yellow yolk and reddish ring. Try it. :-)
So many ways to change up those pickled eggs! Some with the pickled beet juice, some with pickle juice, some with apple cider vinegar… some garlic, some Tobasco, some different herbs… I LOVE pickled eggs. I used to raise Japanese quail and I would make TEENY pickled eggs :) Now I have chickens. My main problem is my DH will throw away the glass jars I save. The ones with the wide mouth work best for pickled eggs so they’re easy to get out.
Can you reuse the jarred beet juice more than once? I added boiled eggs, which we ate. Can I add new boiled eggs to the same jar of juice?
Since they are eggs I would not use the juice over. There are certain foods that the health dept. call toxic and meat and eggs are one of those. They have much higher risk of carrying some type of bacteria that could cause food poisoning.